Bischoff on Art: Works of Jean Johnson, artwork found in India

Agence France-PresseIndian Authorities announced last week that an ancient treasure - thought to be worth as much as $22 billion - was found in several vaults beneath the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple in Thiruvananthapuram, the capital city of the southern Indian state of Kerala.

Jean Johnson, in her 10th year as an art teacher at Asbury Park High School, will be showing her acrylic paintings on aluminum plates at the art629 Gallery in Asbury Park through Aug. 7. Johnson, who often bends or folds over the plates to make three-dimensional objects, is including a selection of her flat, unfolded plates in this show. “There are times the piece stands by itself in its painterly state, and I just can’t cut it up,” she says. “Over time, a strong body of these two-dimensional works grew and it is time they share space with the wall sculptures.”

Indian authorities announced last week they discovered more than a ton of gold coins, solid gold statues, 15-foot-long golden chains and baskets of gemstones in six vaults beneath the 16th-century Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple in southern India. The horde was well documented in public records as gifts from the ancient royal family of Travancore, but no one had opened the vaults for some 150 years.

An 18-foot-tall statue of Vishnu, for example, is made of 77 pounds of pure gold and encrusted with emeralds of undetermined value. Local newspapers suggest the horde might be worth as much as $22 billion.

Some have asked the socialist-leaning government of Kerala to claim the find and use it to alleviate the state’s crushing poverty, but the temple priesthood — who have maintained a treasury at the site for over a thousand years — say it’s sacrosanct.